Sunday, March 13, 2011

Morning ride to Kitt Peak

This morning Nancy wanted to do some stuff at the rig so I decided to take a ride up to Kitt Peak Observatory on the BMW. The ride is about a 100 mile round trip from Justin's Diamond and the observatory sits at about 7000 ft above sea level.


The destination.
The tool that will get me there.
There are several gravel pull-offs like this one on the 12 mile ride up the mountain.

Just a short few feet off the edge of the gravel is a steep fall to the valley several thousand feet below. Keeping the rubber on the pavement is advised.
Shot of the valley from one of the pull-offs. You can see another section of the windy road to the right.
Wandering around the observatory grounds is fun and relaxing.
There is a substantial array of sizes and style of telescope found here. From 16" to 4m optical to infrared and radio telescopes.
The solar telescope is massive.


Twilight lovers, vampires are on premises, heed the warning!

Beautiful views can be found from all corners of Kitt Peak.
It's a nice quick fun ride up (and back down) Kitt Peak and it's fun to wander around and look at all the telescope domes, but the real fun at Kitt Peak would be to attend a night observation session. That will have to be an adventure for another time.

Have a great day!

Noah

2 comments:

  1. Them's great pictures ya got there. I never was go good a them stars and all, standing out at night with with other astrologers weren't fer me. To bad about that solar wind that blowed over the solar telescope. Hope they git it fixed soon.

    I.M. lovin' the fulltime mobile, mobile home lifestye.

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  2. I've never been up there - thanks for sharing!

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